The Spirit Of The Age

WEST POINT ACADEMY.

This sore upon the country, is allowed to remain, and but few editors and public men have the nerve to exhibit the thing in its true light. It costs the government about $130,000 annually to support this School. Each Cadet is paid $28 per month and found. And what class of our citizens is it that receives the benefit of this gratuity? Certainly not the most deserving—the ambitious, the energetic, though penniless, young men; but the children of the rich, and those who from their official stations, have influence in procuring their sons a berth in this institution, where they will be fed and nurtured from the public crib. Henry Clay has educated two or three of his sons at West Point; a portion of the Harrison family has been educated there—as have been the sons of other men of like stamp; and it is too often the case, that these students, after finishing their education, which they obtain as a gratuity from the Government, and for obtaining which they are paid $28 a month, retire in idleness and dissolute habits. The country receives no benefit from their services. We say let this stain upon the body politic, so uncongenial with the spirit of our institutions, be wiped out, and let the stations of honor and trust, in our army and navy, be filled with men, whose ambition, talents, energy, and moral worth, are a guarantee that their duties will be well discharged. Their promotion will depend upon merit.—Hartford Times.